


Interlude: Losing Touch With Distance and Time

by stormandstarlight



Series: Into the Jaskierverse [25]
Category: Dragonriders of Pern - Anne McCaffrey, Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dragons, Alternate Universe - Pernese Dragons, Attempt at Humor, Dimension Travel, Homesickness, Jaskier shows up on Pern, Jaskier | Dandelion Being Jaskier | Dandelion, Light Angst, Minor Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu, and is overall very confused and really just wants to GO HOME, and one very messy eater of a dragon, and rattles around for a bit trying to figure out what the fuck is going on, light gore, there's a couple descriptions of injuiries but not a lot of detail
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-20
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 03:40:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,352
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27636943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stormandstarlight/pseuds/stormandstarlight
Summary: This world is definitely one of theweirderJaskier's been to so far, what with the... teleporting dragons and weird flesh-eating rain and... everything.
Series: Into the Jaskierverse [25]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895545
Comments: 33
Kudos: 108





	Interlude: Losing Touch With Distance and Time

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, so this one was a bit of a ramble. I hope you enjoy it though!

With a wrenching twist, space splits apart around Jaskier, swallows him whole, and spits him out arse-first into a bush. 

_Lovely_. He _does_ so adore being practically turned inside out every time this happens, and the fact that _this_ time he appears to have landed in shrubbery that seems determined to kill him with a thousand cuts only make it _better_. 

He struggles his way out of the bushes that seem determined to drag him back into their grasp, brushes off his doublet and trousers, laments over the thin tears and pulled threads from the branches -- this is the finest southern _silk_ , do you know how much it _costs_ \-- and looks around to try to work out where he is _this_ time. 

What it _appears_ to be is a large field, covered in nothing but strange blue-green shrubbery and something that looks like morning glory but the leaves are shaped all wrong. Even the grass is strange, more bluish than anything else in the field and oddly triangular. It _crunches_ when he walks on it.

What the _fuck_? Of all the worlds he’s been _flung_ through lately, they’ve all-- _l_ _ooked_ normal, even if there wasn’t any magic or Geralt was human. Nothing like _this_. 

Right. Well then. There doesn’t appear to be anyone around nearby, and he’s not got any of the supplies he’d need to spend a night here -- is any of this even _edible_? -- so his best bet is to go looking for whoever lives here.

Hopefully they’re human. Well, human- _like_. . . As intelligent as humans are, and perhaps able to communicate with him, _there_ we go. 

He vaults a low rocky wall -- so there _are_ inhabitants here, and they know how to build… walls. That’s… good -- and ends up in a field covered with the remains of finally some fucking _normal_ grass, the kind people use for hay, alfalfa or… something. Judging by the heat overhead, it’s harvest-time, yet half the field lies uncut. There should be _people_ working in these fields, and there clearly _have_ been, in the past, but there’s _no one here now._

“Hello? Hello-oo? Anybody? _Can_ you hear me?”

No response.

Jaskier _yells_ , using the full force of his bardically-trained lungs to project the sound as far as he can across the fields, but there’s something wrong with the air and his voice falls flat.

 _Bollocks_. 

Well, if he follows the wall, maybe he’ll come to whoever works this land and he can beg some kind of shelter from them. At least until he gets dragged through to another universe like a fish on a line held by some particularly sadistic fisherman.

He trails his fingers along the stone top of the wall, which _feels_ like normal stone, and the grass _smells_ like normal grass, and all in all if it weren’t for the slightly-off shade of the sky -- oh, that is… that is _disconcerting_ , that is, to look up and see a sky that’s not quite… _right_ \-- and the funny blue plants from earlier he could almost believe that he was walking through some Northern Kingdoms farm in late summer, just in time for the first harvest. 

As he walks, the air gets _heavier_ , like the weight before a storm, but the sky is still perfectly clear, not a cloud in sight. He glances over his shoulder, just to make sure there’s nothing sneaking up on him from behind, but there’s not a _thing_ there except for a strange silver shimmer on the horizon and bright flashes in the air, followed by whirling, darting specks.

Huh.

That’s odd.

Are they… birds of some sort? Bats? Bugs? He squints, but they’re too far away for him to make out more than a vague winged outline and more of those bright flashes, long plumes in the air. For a second he fancies them dragons, dancing through the skies and showing off their fiery breath, and then dismisses it. Probably just a trick of the light.

The patterns _are_ rather pretty, though, all of the animals moving in close formation, blinking in and out in patterns.

Blinking-- something must be _very_ wrong with the light here. He could almost swear they were blinking in and out of _existence_ , disappearing and reappearing in another place entirely, spitting more fire -- that’s _definitely_ fire, that is, nothing else it could be. He hops up on the low wall to get a better view, craning his neck and squinting as another wing, glinting brightly golden, sweeps in low and fast over the ground, spouting more flames, this time of a more reddish color. They’re getting closer, _fast_ , and so is the silver shimmer, sweeping like a curtain straight towards him. 

They’re-- _burning_ something, is what they’re doing, something to do with that silver shimmer that ripples down from the sky, burning it straight out of the air so it never touches the ground.

As he watches, a pair of the formations -- they’re _definitely_ full formations, a sort of inverted vee shape -- cross over each other and a patch of the silver stuff slips through the layered creatures, racing downwards. Towards Jaskier.

With frantic motions, a group dives, plunging after the silver stuff, flames spurting, while another pair of brilliant golden -- Melitele’s _tits_ , those _are_ dragons, there’s no mistaking the-- the massive webby wings and big chompy heads -- brilliant golden _dragons_ come racing up from underneath, desperate to keep whatever it is from reaching the ground.

_What happens if it reaches the ground?_

Jaskier, all of a sudden, does _not_ want to find out. 

He hops down off the wall, but now that his feet are moving they don’t want to _stop_ moving, the weight of the air suddenly oppressive, frightening, like nothing’s ever been at home, and there’s no Geralt here with his silver sword to be all grumpy and practical about things and frighten off the… fear. He stumbles backwards, catches a flash of silver in the corner of his eye, spins, and _runs_.

He goes from a jog to a run to a full-out _sprint_ in a heartbeat, bounding over a wall that gets in his way and breaking the heel off one of his boots -- those were _nice_ boots! He snaps the other heel off in his hand so he’s not unbalanced and _runs_ , using every ounce of the stamina and speed that he’s gotten from decades of trailing around after Geralt and running away from monsters.

It’s not enough.

When he throws a frantic glance over his shoulder, the silver shimmer has gotten even _closer_ , and the dragons are-- _very_ large, and _very_ flaming-y, and _oh gods what if they decide they want a mid-burning-things_ **_snack?_ **

If anything, he runs even faster after that, fast enough and long enough that his boots, already worn from weeks of trailing around after Geralt, split at the sides with the strain and the soles fall right off, exposing his feet to the rough stubble of mown grass and the prickle of the weird crunchy blue-green not-quite-grass.

He keeps running.

The grass scrapes his feet and the stubble of the mown hay is _sharp_ , sharp enough that he can _feel_ it cutting into the skin of his soles through the worn places in his boots, and the rocks and things bruise him when he steps on them, but the threat of _whatever-it-is_ behind him is far scarier than the thought of injuring his feet.

He keeps running.

There’s a crackling hiss and the stench of something burning from behind him, and when he throws another glance over his shoulder, there’s a long silver thread winding down towards the ground, smoke rising from where it touches, the long stalks of the hay bending forward and wilting, blackening--.

Oh, gods preserve him, he’s going to _die_ \--

With a _whoosh_ , a massive brown dragon sweeps straight over his head and thumps to the ground in front of him, and he very nearly runs straight into its chest, catching himself just in time to keep him from faceplanting into the leather straps there--

Leather straps?

He backs up a stride or two, gaping up at the _very clearly_ ** _saddled_** dragon standing in front of him, the rider staring down at him through tinted glass goggles and furs wrapped around the lower half of his face before he unhooks what has to be half-a-dozen different bits and pieces of leather connecting him to the beast and swings straight down the creature’s shoulder, landing with a _thump_ in front of Jaskier. 

They stare at each other for a long moment, and then the rider yanks his goggles up and furs down to reveal a _very_ familiar face, golden-amber irises and scar over the eye and day-old stubble--

Right then and there, his exhaustion catches up with him and Jaskier faceplants straight into Lambert’s chest.

* * *

For Lambert, the day _starts out_ the same as any other. Wake up next to Aiden, breakfast in the hall for him and out in the Bowl for Aveth and the rest of the dragons, spend the morning checking and rechecking harness and leathers and goggles while the weyrlings pack firestone and the dragons chew it up until Geralt gives the call to mount up and the first-shift riders all line up on the Weyr Rim.

Aiden waves up at him from the Bowl -- he’s last-shift today, the lucky fucker, Lambert’s always envied the greenriders, _two hours_ and they’re _done_ instead of being stuck for all-fucking- _six_ of a full Fall like the fucking browns and bronzes--

 _You wish I wasn’t a brown?_ Aveth asks fondly, already knowing the answer, swinging his head up and over his shoulder so Lambert can give him a quick rub on the eyeridge.

_Nah. You’re fine just the way you are. Just wish I wasn’t fucking stuck with the wing for six hours._

Aveth rumbles, and then swings his head right back around at Rokirith’s warning growl. Lambert sticks his tongue out in Geralt’s direction, and the Weyrleader glares at him before lifting one arm high in the signal for _make ready_.

The Weyr goes silent. 

Every dragon on the rim tenses, wings half-opening, heads lifting. Several of them look back for more firestone, despite the fact that all of them have already been fed full to bursting of the flame-inducing rock. Lambert checks his harness straps again, and then again, while Aveth rumbles, impatient; but forewarned is forearmed, as Vesemir likes to say, and if three checks before Fall is what it takes to keep him from plummeting to his death from hundreds of feet up then three checks is what he’s damn well going to _do_ \--

Geralt shifts to the signal for _prepare to go aloft_ and Aveth shakes out his wings while Scorath beside him does the same, and then he drops his arm and they’re off, racing up into the sky while very nearly the full strength of the Weyr and all its dragons race after them.

In the Weyr Bowl below, Jaskier’s Luth bugles, calling out a sendoff to her mate, and Rokirith lets out a pleased rumble. Aveth and Lambert share a mental eye roll until Aiden’s Felith joins her, and then the rest of the Weyr, the second- and last-shift blues and greens, the weyrlings, the dragons too old to fight Thread, they all join in as the great golden queens’ wing slides into place below the rest of the wings and they all go _between_ as one.

The beginning of Fall is easy enough, over the fields of Aedirn, all of them empty and half-harvested, the people hiding in stone buildings and caves while Thread falls until it’s safe to go outside. 

It would be safe enough to go outside _anyways_ , the Wings are certainly good enough to keep a burrow from happening right on top of somebody, but people are scared of Thread, scared enough to forget about the safety the Weyrs provide.

 _With good reason_ , Aveth comments, showing Lambert one of his own memories, when he’d been coordinating groundcrews in the early days and had had to shepherd terrified holders through burning it out of the ground. This memory is of one of the _worse_ burrows they’d encountered, one that had destroyed an entire field, with livestock in it no-fucking-less. Lambert shivers involuntarily at the image of the sagging vegetation, the deep holes carved into the ground, and the long silver gleam of Thread among bone and muscle, eating its way straight through everything it touched. They’d had to firestone that entire field just to stop the spread and it _still_ won’t grow anything, even now--

 _Aveth_! Rokirith shouts, forcibly dragging them back to the present, and Aveth wheels on a wingtip, nearly as agile as the smaller blues, to catch a Thread the rest of the wing missed. He flips a quick hand signal at Geralt, indicating they’re okay, and despite the furs covering his face, Lambert can tell that the Weyrleader is scowling. Ha! Let him get pissed, he can’t say anything and he knows it. They’re fucking _good_ at what they do.

 _We are, aren’t we,_ Aveth agrees, and then relays a report from Yennefer and Vivith about a burrow and calling in groundcrews.

And the Fall goes on. 

Green first-shift is replaced by second-shift, and then blue first by blue last. They’re nearing the north bit of Mahakam now, entering into the second half of fall, when the browns and bronzes begin to tire.

 _Vivith says she sees a person_ , Aveth relays suddenly, and Lambert can’t help twisting in his fighting straps to try to see the ground, even though they’re so high up anyone below would be nothing more than a speck.

 _Just some lost idiot on groundcrew,_ Lambert says, eyeing Viper Wing below them to make sure they’ve figured out those spacing issues they’ve been having all Fall.

 _She says he isn’t groundcrew. She says he’s running. She says he’s--_ **_Burrow!_ ** Aveth shouts, suddenly frantic, and Rokirith roars. _Near him!_ **_Luth!_ **

_Luth isn’t here! She’s last-shift, remember? She’s fine, and why are you worried about_ **_her_ ** _, anyways?_ Lambert says back, stroking his dragon’s neck in an attempt to calm him down, but Rokirith is frantic now too, head constantly turning to see the figure on the ground. What the hell has got _into_ them?

 _Luth says he is safe, that he’s with her. Lambert, what’s going_ **_on_** _ **?**_ Aveth asks, sounding _plaintive_. His dragon _never_ sounds plaintive! What the fuck is--

 _Geralt says to go and see what’s happening_ , Rokirith relays, and even his normally-calm voice is worried. 

_I go!_ Aveth calls, and drops out of the Wing like a stone.

Lambert leans over his neck to see the figure on the ground more clearly. He’s wearing some kind of brightly-colored outfit, all fucking _coordinated_ like some kind of prissy noble, but he’s running at a good pace, and his stride says he can keep going for a long time, even if he is fucking limping.

 _Behind you!_ someone relays to both of them, and Aveth levels out into a forward glide as Lambert twists to watch the long silver fall of a missed Thread roil past them. He has a moment to be grateful for Aveth’s speed and skill on the wing and then he realizes that that Thread is going to land practically on-fucking- _top_ of the figure on the ground. He has a moment to regret his earlier confidence in the skill of the wings and then it’s very clear that if he doesn’t do _something_ the running man is going to _die_. 

Aveth picks the thought out of Lambert’s mind with the ease of long partnership and simply folds his wings and drops to the ground, jarring his rider forward in the fighting straps. The running man -- because it _is_ a man, some idiot noble-or-something -- very nearly slams straight into the brown’s side before skidding to a stop.

Lambert unclips the fighting straps and slides down Aveth’s side, already preparing his lecture -- he got _damn_ good at them before they put Mousesack in command of the groundcrews -- thumps to the ground with the opening words on his lips--

And has to scramble to catch him as fucking _Jaskier_ topples into his arms, unconscious.

* * *

Aveth bugles, _loud_ , and the sound is answered by every dragon in the wings above, the neat formations slipping out of alignment before Vivith roars them back into pattern and Rokirith drops out of the sky, Eskel and Scorath moving into their position as commanders of the fighting wings. 

Lambert just stands there, holding fucking _Jaskier_ unconscious in his arms like a child. The sides of his boots are split apart, he notes idly, and he’s worn the skin off the bottom of his feet, running over the sharp stubble of cut grass. Above them, the three greens currently in the queens’ support wing sweep over and flame the burrow, the heat and stench of phosphine-generated flame sweeping over the both of them and making Lambert cough. Rokirith thunders by and makes a neat landing next to the both of them, Geralt already throwing off the fighting straps and launching himself over the bronze’s side. He’s already scowling when he reaches Lambert’s side. “What the _hell_ , Lambert, why is every single dragon in the Weyr panicking?”

Lambert dumps Jaskier into his arms, and Geralt’s eyes go wide as he shifts to cradle his weyrmate, sinking down to settle the both of them on the ground. “Luth--”

 _Luth does not answer_ , Aveth says, and then rumbles uneasily, eyes spinning yellow and violet. _Felith says Jaskier is with her_.

“ _What_?” Lambert spits, looking back at the man in Geralt’s arms. That’s Jaskier, all right, down to the fall of his hair and the way his fingers curl into the shape of a lute neck. 

_Jaskier is here. Jaskier is at the Weyr with Luth. Lambert, what’s happening_? Aveth asks, plaintive as only dragons can be, and Lambert automatically reaches up to scratch at his brow ridge.

_Fuck if I know, but we’ll figure it out._

Aveth and Rokirith rumble simultaneously, uneasy, but their eyes slide back towards green and blue.

“Lambert,” Geralt says, serious as always. “Get him back to the Weyr. Get Triss--”

“Yeah,” Lambert says, and hoists Jaskier -- the other Jaskier -- the not-Jaskier -- ah, fuck it, the _stranger_ over his shoulder like a bag of firestone. Aveth obligingly crouches to let him mount, and he gets the stranger secured in the fighting straps without much trouble.

Geralt watches them go from the ground, three beats up and _between_. He’s back over the Star Stones in three heartbeats, the watchdragon on the heights bugling up to him in distress.

Down below, in the Bowl, Luth is having some kind of fucking _fit_ , wings flailing, tail thrashing, while the other greens look on and Jaskier -- because that is definitely _their Jaskier_ , embroidered flying gear and all -- desperately trying to calm her while she throws her head back and _screams_. 

In front of him, the stranger startles awake, one hand going to his head, then the other as he curls up, nearly falling off Aveth before Lambert hooks his other arm around his midsection to hold him steady.

“Worse than _Yennefer_ ,” the stranger mutters, then cries out, short and sharp. “No! No, I’m not-- I’m not the one you want-- fuck-- _bollocks_.” He slumps forward with a sigh, leaning back against Lambert. Below them, Luth calms, her awful keening dying away as she dips her head towards Jaskier.

Aveth rumbles underneath them, and the stranger jolts. _Luth speaks again._

 _Well?_ Lambert demands.

_She says he is Jaskier._

_Which_ **_one_** _?_

_Both of them._

Lambert blinks down at the stranger-- Jaskier-- _fuck_ \-- the person in front of him. He certainly _looks_ like Jaskier, and there’s no way a dragon could be wrong about her rider, but _two_ of them? How the fuck is that even _possible_?

Aveth turns neatly on a wingtip, and the stranger-- fuck it, _other Jaskier_ clutches at Lambert’s arms for balance, whimpering slightly, and he doesn’t stop until they’re safely settled on the ground again.

“Are we _down_ yet?”

“Yeah,” Lambert replies, trying to figure out how to explain _this_ one to the Weyr, and the other Jaskier faints dead away.

* * *

“Well,” Triss says, hands folded together in her lap while Geralt _and_ Yennefer _and_ Eskel _and_ Lambert _and_ Jaskier all stare at her from their positions around the edge of the room. “What do you want to know first?”

“Maybe start with what the fuck Jaskier’s fucking _doppelganger_ is doing trying to out-fucking-run Threadfall?” Lambert asks, arms folded across his chest. 

“ _Is_ it Jaskier?” Yenna asks, before Triss can reply, and Jaskier -- their Jaskier -- hums softly.

“Luth says he is.”

“And you trust her word after that display earlier?” Yenna is bitingly sarcastic, as always, but there’s an undercurrent of worry in her voice.

Jaskier scoffs, offended. “She was _confused_ , there were suddenly two of me. I’d like to see any one of _you_ suddenly have two dragons and see how well you react.”

“He’s got a point,” Eskel puts in. “Luth have anything else to say?”

Jaskier shrugs. “He’s me, but… _not_ me, and he’s not from this world. She’s not exactly at her most _coherent_ right now, you know.”

“When is she ever,” Lambert rumbles, and Geralt sends him a sharp look, which he ignores.

“Triss,” Geralt says, and everyone looks at him. “What _do_ you know?”

“Well, he’s injured, but only mildly. It looks like he wore through his boots trying to outrun Threadfall,” “Idiot,” Lambert snorts, and ignores another glare from Geralt, while Triss keeps going right on over the top of him, “but other than that he seems to be in the peak of health. He’s asleep right now, but he should wake up fairly soon, and I have no doubt you can ask him as many questions as you need to _then_.”

“You know nothing about where he came from?” Yenna asks, leaning forward over the bed to inspect his face, a near-perfect match of their own Jaskier, if a bit older.

“He’s been unconscious since he came to the Weyr! I haven’t had a chance to _ask_ him yet,” Triss retorts, and sighs. “I’ve cleaned and bandaged his feet, but there’s nothing more I can do.”

Geralt hums, tips his head to the side, and leaves without another word, an exasperated Jaskier hopping to catch up as the rest disperse at his unspoken dismissal, only Eskel lingering behind.

“Triss. I know you’re not really supposed to know about this, but do you think it could be…”

“Time travel?” she finishes for him, already reaching out to her Sennath.

 _No_ , Sennath says firmly into her mind. _He is not from here_.

_Not from this time?_

_Not from this world. Luth was confused_.

 _Then_ **_how--_ **

Between _goes many places_ , Sennath answers placidly, and Triss drops the topic for the moment.

“Sennath says--”

“Yeah, Scorath too,” Eskel interrupts, wryly, and smiles at her. “Worth a shot.”

“I suppose.” She turns to look at the sleeping stranger, Jaskier but _not_ , and sighs. “Where did he _come_ from?”

“Guess we’ll have to wait and see.” Eskel claps her on the shoulder, gently, and jerks his chin towards the door. “Food’s in the hall.”

“Thanks,” she says, and doesn’t move.

* * *

Jaskier wakes in an unfamiliar bed, piled high with furs, and with an unnerving numbness in his feet where there should be pain from all the running he did over newly mown grass in worn-through boots. He tries to flex his toes, fails to register any sensation, and blinks awake with a gasp because he _can’t_ have broken his back, he can’t _possibly_ \--

“You’re awake!” says a cheerful female voice, and he twists to look at whoever it is, grateful for something, _anything_ to drag him out of this sudden and very probably entirely irrational panic. It’s Triss, Triss Merigold, dressed in -- is that _leather?_ \-- some strange getup involving leather jackets with fur linings and blackened-glass goggles slung around her neck like he’s seen dwarven smiths wear. Something in his expression must show his utter _bafflement_ at this turn of events -- what kind of world has he been _flung_ to, that _Triss Merigold_ , more fastidious with her clothing than even _Yennefer_ , is wearing _leather_? -- because she turns to look at him more fully as she braids her hair up tightly. 

“I just came in to check on you,” she says, and he gapes at her.

“What are you _wearing_?” and then he remembers that that is _not_ the kind of thing you say to a lady you just met but he’s never been good at eating his own words so he musters up every single ounce of charm he can and soldiers on. “Because you look _amazing_ , really, the whole… skintight leather thing, it’s very… you.” It’s _not_ , not by _any_ means, but he’s got nothing else to say and maybe if she feels flattered enough she’ll tell him what the hell’s going on--

Triss laughs. “If I had any doubt you were Jaskier before, you’ve certainly cleared _that_ up. I have to go, but I’ll send Shani in as soon as she’s free.” She dips her head to him, ties her hair back with a final _yank_ and a neat twist of her fingers that somehow makes it all smooth down into a knot of braids at the nape of her neck, and walks out of the… cave? Is he in a _cave?_

He’s in a cave. 

What the _fuck_. 

First the strange plants, and the weird sky, and then the dragons and the-- the-- the _world-eating rain_ or whatever the fuck that was and now _Triss_. In _leather_. 

It _is_ a good look on her, he has to admit. 

He wriggles up in the furs (his legs work, at least, which disproves the broken back theory, which is… nice, but still doesn’t explain why he can’t feel his fucking _feet_ ) to get a better look at what this… this _cave_ he’s in looks like. It’s definitely a cave; the walls are seamless, covered in the markings of natural stone, but they’re clearly _carved_ , at least, so perhaps it was _intentional_ to build this… house or inn or wherever into the side of a mountain or something. There’s a doorway that leads out into a hallway, well-lit with alchemical lanterns, and a neat shelf of jugs and jars and bottles and things running around the curved walls -- or _wall_ , rather -- and the place is silent in the way that only temples and infirmaries are silent.

It’s eerie and unnerving and all of a sudden he just wants to go _home_ , back to Kaer Morhen or Oxenfurt or even a fucking _campsite_ in the woods with Geralt being all-- big and grumpy and _familiar_ , not world after world of strange places and strange faces and people who are _just_ different enough from the people he knows to make it hurt all the more. 

Still. He can only hope that whatever it is that’s dragging him world-to-world like a dog on a leash fades soon, or that he finds a Yen or a Ciri or a Triss ( _not_ a Triss-in-leathers, he doesn’t think ) who can help him get home, or that _his_ Geralt will come after him sooner or later.

And in the meantime, he’s stuck here. 

He’s busy contemplating his sad fate and trying to work the sensation of universe-hopping into poetic form (fish on a hook, while accurate, is too… _pedestrian_ ), when Shani steps in. _She_ , at least, is dressed in something resembling normal clothes, green on green on green with a leather satchel over one shoulder and her red hair cropped shorter than she wears it back home. 

“Triss told me you were awake. Are you feeling better? Feet hurt at all?”

“Er… no. I… can’t feel them at _all_ , actually, is that _normal_? Have I got… nerve damage, or something? Were those plants poisonous? Did they _poison_ me? Am I going to _die_?”

Shani blinks. “Are you… allergic to numbweed, or something?”

“Numbweed,” Jaskier repeats dully. The fuck is _numbweed_?

“Yes, _numbweed,_ ” Shani says, like she thinks he might be slow. 

“The fuck is numbweed?” Jaskier asks, because that thought’s not doing any good just sitting around inside his head, and she blinks and clearly recalibrates _something_ inside her head, because she stops looking at him like he’s an idiot and starts looking at him like he’s a particularly clueless foreigner.

“It’s a painkiller. _Numb_ weed, see?”

“Ah.” He doesn’t see.

She strides over to his bedside and strips the furs away with the practiced efficiency that only a healer can summon. Jaskier squeaks and covers his… _private area_ before realizing that he’s still wearing his own chemise and smalls and takes his hands away sheepishly. Shani, to her credit, pretends not to notice and instead goes about the business of stripping away the neat bandages from his feet with practiced efficiency.

“How bad is it?” Jaskier asks, and she snorts.

“You’ll be walking by the end of today, I don’t see why they made such a fuss. How about your head? Feeling weird? Dizzy? Headache?”

Mostly he just feels tired. Tired of running, tired of waking up somewhere new every few hours or days or weeks, _tired_. “How long was I asleep for?”

“A few hours. Not long. Come on, up you get.”

“I thought you said I wouldn’t be walking until the end of the day?”

“It _is_ the end of the day, and they’re only serving dinner for another fifteen minutes, and I _don’t_ want to spend my night eating hearth-stew and klah.”

“Klah,” Jaskier repeats, dully, because that’s _definitely_ a word, and Shani lets out an explosive sigh. 

“Up!”

He gets up.

He balances precariously on numb soles while she helps him shrug into a pair of pants woven from something dense and rough and sturdy and another leather jacket like the one Triss was wearing, only this one is old and worn out and smells slightly like fish, and then he leans on her for balance as they walk down the corridor. There’s a doorway into open air at the end of it, and while Shani rounds the corner as though this is a sight she sees every day (actually, she _lives_ here, she probably _does_ , and what a life _that_ must be), Jaskier just _stares._

There are _dragons_.

There are dragons _everywhere_. 

Green ones, blue ones, brown and greeny-brown and a single massive _golden_ one sitting perched on a ledge like he’s king of the place (who knows, he _might_ be, _Borch_ was certainly confident enough to make a proper king), flitting all over the place, stooping and diving over a herd of penned cattle, splashing each other in the lake that takes up half the space at the bottom of this… what is this, a crater? It’s a great big _hole_ , is what it _looks_ like, with steep stone walls absolutely _covered_ in caves and staircases and wooden structures. It rivals even towns like Posada with its towers, or Toussaint’s Vedette and its limestone caves, for sheer stunning _architecture_. He grips the lip of the door and just stares out over the bowl while Shani looks on fondly.

“You’ve never seen a Weyr before, I take it?”

He blinks at her. “Weyr?” He’s heard of the Temerian _weirs_ before, but somehow he doesn’t think she means a low dam to build a swimming hole, not with all of… _this_ laid out before him. 

She gestures broadly to the entire structure. “Kaer Morhen Weyr, pride of the North. Now, are you coming or not?”

Jaskier nods and lets her help him down the low set of stairs from the… infirmary or wherever they are, down onto the floor of the great bowl-canyon thing. He wobbles his way across the packed dirt and sand, uncomfortably aware that _every single person here_ is _staring_ at him. Even the _dragons_ are taking an interest, though if they’re anything like _Borch_ he supposes that’s not surprising. Geralt never said anything about _brown_ dragons, though, or blue ones. 

He fumbles his way towards the mouth of _another_ cave, cut directly into the side of the cliff, under the weight of all those stares. A dozen worlds he’s been to, but it’s never been quite like _this_ , so open and exposed and _strange._

He curls slightly around another pang of homesickness in his gut, and Shani pats him on the shoulder. “Come on. You’ll feel better once you’ve eaten.”

That’s probably true. It still doesn’t change the fact that he’s in a _completely different universe_ right now, with no foreseeable way of getting home, unless these people know something no one else does. 

He makes it into the big cave, which is-- it’s a dining hall, plain and simple, same as the one at Oxenfurt or Kaer Morhen or any number of smaller schools across the Continent, designed to feed as many people as possible in as little time as possible.

It’s mostly empty, yes, but there are still enough people around that he feels the old shivers of stage fright in his gut. They’re _staring_. 

Well, it’s not like he hasn’t spent the last, ooh, he doesn’t even _know_ how many years learning how to deal with that, so he puts his shoulders back, pretends he’s got the comforting weight of his lute against his chest (oh, that _hurts,_ actually, probably best to _not_ think about that), and walks forward, holding politely to Shani’s arm like he’s escorting her to a ball rather than using her as a crutch.

But the _stares_ …

They’re not actively hostile, at least, just confused and interested, but it’s still-- a _lot_.

“You’re awake,” says a cool voice from behind him.

Shani glances over her shoulder, and then skillfully manhandles Jaskier around into facing the other way, dipping her head with a polite-sounding “Weyrwoman.”

Jaskier decides to take the more direct route.

“ _Yen_?”

Yen -- because it _is_ Yen, of all people, standing there in a fine black dress with her arms folded neatly across her chest -- tips her head and looks at him. “You really do look just like him.”

“Ah, well, I believe that would be because I _am_ him. If the him you’re referring to is this world’s version of _me_ , of course, and not someone else, in which case that statement is really--” he swallows, “ _quite_ unsettling and I would greatly prefer to know which ‘him’ it is you’re referring to so that I can--” Shani elbows him in the side, _hard_ , and he swallows again and clamps his mouth shut.

Yen looks at him with amused purple eyes, and he suppresses the urge to laugh. It’s born out of nerves, of course, but she’s not the kind of person who would take that well. Or at _all_ , actually, and if this world has people like _Lambert_ riding fucking _dragons_ , he doesn’t want to see what a sorceress as scary as she is is capable of.

When it’s clear that he’s not planning on saying _anything_ more, thank you very much, Shani shrugs minutely and gestures for Yen to follow them. Around them, the handful of men and women still eating are still staring, but in a bit more of an… _unsettled_ way. There are whispers where there weren’t before, and now their eyes slide away from his.

Shani notices him looking. “I think they just realized that you’re actually _Jaskier_ , and not just…”

“Some doppler? Actually, do you _have_ dopplers here? Because you have dragons, but they’re not like any dragons I’ve ever seen before, and I _have_ been in worlds where they didn’t have any magic at _all_ , which was-- _really_ quite weird--”

“Magic? Like fairy stories?” Shani asks with a laugh, while Yen just _looks_ at him in that special way she has that makes him want to crawl out of his skin. He scowls back at her like he always does, just to not seem… _cowed_ or whatever, and it has the same effect it always has, which is to say, _none_. 

“Ah,” he says, because there’s not a lot else to say to a statement like that, and then “so you don’t have magic here either?”

“We don’t,” says Yen. Right. Fuck. Yet _another--_ “Though I take it you do?”

“How do you think I got here?” he asks, quick and bitter because _this_ place can’t help him either, and then Shani hoists him up a pair of steps, onto a dais, and right onto a bench at a large table where there’s already an impressive array of food spread out. Yen slips into the massive stone chair at the head of the table -- _Weyrwoman_ , Shani called her, and this is a Weyr, that must be a-- _title_ of some sort, which means Yen is… nobility here? Is she nobility back home? He’s never asked.

Shani, with longsuffering patience, thumps a plate of food down in front of his nose and commands him to eat in a voice that brooks no argument.

He eats.

Yennefer stares at him.

Shani sighs and fills her own plate, eating with the quick efficiency he remembers from days in the Oxenfurt meal hall, where you ate as much as possible during the fifteen free minutes you got outside of studying and hoped it was enough that you didn’t faint during lecture. Fun times, Oxenfurt, though in truth he _does_ miss it, sometimes, the easy camaraderie, the _challenge_ of the classes, the joy in being surrounded by like-minded students who didn’t simply _grunt_ when you asked them for reviews--

Ah. And now he’s thinking about Geralt again. 

Geralt, who countless versions of himself have fallen in love with (not that _that’s_ a surprise), and who in a dozen universes _reciprocates_ it in a way that _his_ Geralt never quite has, and who he hopes to Melitele and Freya and whichever other gods, goddesses and assorted celestial powers is looking for him.

Geralt, whom he’s loved for the _vastly_ greater part of his life.

Yen’s gaze shifts from squarely on him to somewhere over his shoulder, and he twists to-- ah. Say a bear’s name, it’s the man himself. 

“Weyrleader! You’re back!” Shani says beside him, and Yen nods a quick greeting before returning her gaze to Jaskier. _Weyrleader_. And Yen is Weyrwoman, which means-- are they _together_ here? That’s… certainly not the norm in _most_ of the universes he’s been to, but their titles would certainly seem to _imply_ it…

With a _thump_ , Geralt -- _this_ world’s Geralt, not that there’s any _other_ Geralt around-- _is_ there? Is that possible, for there to be two Geralts to a world? -- Geralt sits down across from him and just

 _Stares_.

Right, that’s it.

Jaskier sets down the bread roll he’s been carefully gnawing the soft insides out of down onto his plate with a _thunk_ and stares right back with the ease of a lifetime spent facing down an irritated witcher who is more often than not irritated with _him_.

Geralt raises an eyebrow.

Jaskier tips his head to the side, projecting an aura of perfect, childlike innocence.

Geralt’s lips pull back in a very faint smirk.

Jaskier lets loose the faintest of offended scoffs and makes as if to press a hand to his heart.

Geralt’s smirk gets bigger.

“ _Enough_ ,” Yen snaps, with an exasperated huff. “Gods, you’re as bad as ever.”

“You’re _staring_ ,” Jaskier says, knowing it’s going to come out petulant and saying it anyways, because, well, they _are_. 

Geralt tips his head at him, eyes softer than they usually are back home. “You really _are_ him, aren’t you.”

“What gave it away?”

“Forgive us for not quite being willing to believe that you’re Jaskier from another universe when we’ve barely managed to convince the highest scholars in the land that the world isn’t _flat_ ,” Yen says, sarcastic but gentler about it than he would have thought from her.

“Really? So why do _you_ believe me?”

Between _goes many places_ , says a voice that appears to be _entirely inside his head_. _Luth says you are her rider, and she wouldn’t be wrong. Not on this._

The voice is… _familiar_ , somehow, calm, reasonable, endlessly patient and-- is that _amusement_? Whatever it is, it feels like someone he’s known for most of his life, someone he’s walked beside for hours upon hours, but he can’t quite--

 _“Roach_?”

Yen’s eyes go ever so slightly wider, Geralt tips his head to the side with a _hm_ , and the voice inside his head says _I’m a_ **_horse_?**with enough indignation to outmatch a whole _gaggle_ of slighted noblewomen. ( _s_ that what you call them? A _gaggle_? No, that’s for _geese,_ isn’t it, though the noblewomen he’s met certainly make enough noise to out-squawk any flock--)

“You heard that.”

“Er. Yes?”

Geralt hums and tips his head to the side even more, eyes going softly unfocused in a way that looks _entirely_ unsettling on Geralt, usually so _alert_ all of the time. There’s a moment of awkward silence that Jaskier takes advantage of to go back to his bread, and then Geralt refocuses and looks back down at him.

“How did you get here?”

“Ah. Well. It’s a… bit of a long story, really.”

“Never thought you’d be one to hate the sound of your own voice,” Geralt shoots back, easy and oddly fond, and Jaskier smiles despite himself. 

“Well. if you _really_ want to know,” Yen snorts, “I suppose it started with Stregobor -- do you have him in this world?” Both Yen and Geralt make a face that he interprets as very much a _yes_. “Right. I’m... not entirely sure what it was he thought he was doing, but somehow or other he… caught me in a sort of portal, I guess. It… closed wrong, or something, and I’ve been dragged through, oh--” he tries to do a quick mental tally, loses count halfway in, decides fuck it, and says “dozens of worlds ever since. Never the same world twice, though, and I always find you.” He nods towards Geralt, pointedly not thinking about what that might _mean_ in a greater cosmic sense.

“So you’ve been, what, bouncing from world to world?” Shani cuts in, and Jaskier nods, ripping up bits of uneaten crust into smaller and smaller pieces. “How many have you been to?”

“Lost count at this point, honestly. Although I _can_ tell you that there were some… _really_ weird ones out there.” Not least the one where Geralt was a _bard_ , but at least that world had looked like his own, not… whatever it is _this_ place’s got going on.

“And you’ll disappear again soon?” Yen asks, propping one elbow elegantly on the table. 

Jaskier nods. “The time in each world varies. Sometimes an hour, sometimes a week. Never much longer, though.” Shani makes a wordless sympathetic noise, and he shoots her a grateful look. 

Geralt hums, the hum he makes when he’s about to speak but hasn’t quite worked up to actually _doing_ it yet, and then says “You’re welcome to stay for as long as you’re in this world.”

“Oh thank you, because I had _so_ many other places I could’ve gone,” Jaskier retorts, like it’s ten years ago and he’s out on the path with _his_ Geralt, and _wonder_ of wonders, Geralt _smiles_. Jaskier smiles right back at him, because it’s _so_ easy to pretend that this is his Geralt and that everything’s all right again, tired as he is, and then Yen makes a delicate throat-clearing noise that hits with the force of a crossbow bolt and Geralt snaps his gaze away, glancing down and to the side the way he does when he’s embarrassed.

Faintly, Jaskier catches the echo of an amused chuckle from the weird telepathic-not-a-horse-Roach-thing, and then Yen is standing with an authoritative swish of skirts and an “I’ll leave you to eat,” that’s an _order_ more than it is anything else, and then she’s gone, striding cleanly away down the aisle between the tables. Shani chuckles, taps the table lightly, and follows her, stride long and wide and _purposeful_. Jaskier tries not to watch her go with a sense of foreboding. 

It doesn’t work. 

Geralt hums, faintly amused, and sets to work on a bread roll of his own while Jaskier coughs and forcefully tells his brain that this is _not_ his world and _not_ his Geralt, he can’t just go around _flirting_ with him when there’s a perfectly good Jaskier already here to-- what? Flirt as well? Share inside jokes with? Share a _bed_ with?

Geralt clears his throat, sharply, and Jaskier looks up. To his relief, the witcher ( _is_ he a witcher here?) looks just as uncomfortable now as he feels.

“Nice, uh, world you have here,” he says, and then makes a face at the sheer _stupidity_ of that comment. Twenty years he’s known Geralt, he should have gotten _some_ control over his tongue by now, but _nooooo_ , he might as well be nineteen and talking about _bread_ in his pants. 

Geralt hums, and Jaskier latches on to something, _anything_ , to drag himself out of this hole he’s talked his way into. “Really! It’s very, uh, _different_.” Oh, _very_ nice, Jaskier, you just keep getting better at this. “Lots of… dragons.” Ah, _bollocks_. 

Geralt huffs out his quiet laugh but doesn’t say _anything_ , the _brute_ , just smiles that insufferable half-smile of his at-- wait, no, that’s over his shoulder, actually--

Jaskier twists in his seat to see-- _himself_ jogging up the aisle, waving absentmindedly at the clusters of people still in the dining hall, takes the three steps up to the dais in one bound, grins at Geralt, _plants a kiss on his cheek_ (that Geralt _allows_ ), stuffs a whole roll in his mouth, and sits down with a flourish.

“Ho huor hee,” he says, grinning around a mouthful of bread, and then chews, chews, _chews_ , swallows, brushes his hair out of his eyes, and says, brightly, “So you’re me!”

“Um,” says Jaskier. Geralt snorts. Are they… _together?_ Of course they’re together. They’ve been together in every world he’s been to so far, it feels like. 

“Oh, _you’re_ not helping,” other-him scoffs. “Have you said anything at all besides ‘hm’ to him? _Has_ he said anything besides ‘hm’?”

“A bit. More than usual, actually, is he always this talkative in your world?” Jaskier replies, beginning to warm to this other version of himself. After all, what's easier than talking to yourself?

“What, you haven’t gotten him out of his shell in yours?”

“Not as much as _you_ seem to have.”

“ _Years_ of work, my friend, _years_ of work. Roach helped too,” other-him adds magnanimously, and there’s the very distinct mental impression of a snort from Roach. Geralt hms. It’s so very _Geralty_ that Jaskier can’t help but to laugh.

And laugh.

And _laugh._

It all just… _spills_ out of him like water over a weir, all of the stress and panic and fear and strangeness breaking free of the place where he’s _very carefully_ kept it all bottled up inside him so he can actually try to figure out a way to _solve_ this, and he _laughs_. 

Other-him makes a surprised face that only makes him laugh harder, and then pats him(self?) awkwardly on the shoulder until the bubbling panic wears itself out and Jaskier looks up to see Geralt looking at him with that unbearably soft expression that never fails to leave him fumbling awkwardly for something to do, something to _say_ , because if he has to keep looking at Geralt looking at him like _that_ there’s a very real possibility he might just kiss the man. 

Other-him, meanwhile, is staring at him again. “Do I _really_ look like that when I’m laughing? All… _scrunched-up_?”

Geralt makes a noise that is the _essence_ of smugness, and other-him whips around, entire body drawing upright like an affronted cat, all puffed tail and injured dignity, and Jaskier knows he does the same thing, he _knows_ it, it’s what got them into the whole mess with the djinn in the first place (well, technically that was Geralt and his frankly _ridiculous_ plan to get some sleep, why he didn’t just go for a good shag Jaskier will _never_ understand, but that’s Geralt for you), but it’s… it’s _funny_ , is what it is.

From the outside, it’s godsdamned _hilarious_. 

He clamps his jaw shut, because if he starts laughing again now he’s probably not going to be able to _stop_ unless someone knocks him over the head, but a high-pitched noise still somehow manages to escape him, like a… teakettle or something.

“ _Are_ you all right?” Other-him asks, turning all that bristling indignation on him, and he chokes, swallows, and manages to gasp out “I’m sorry, it’s been--” and then he stops.

How long _has_ it been? Weeks? _Months?_ More than that?

He tries to tot up the collective hours he’s spent in each world, but there are too many to remember, too many nights and days and no consistent dates to look back at and-- and he _doesn’t know how long it’s been_. 

_Something_ must show on his face, because both other-him and Geralt look at each other, then at him, and Geralt pushes himself up away from the table and says, firmly, “ _Bed_ ,” like Jaskier’s _five_ and needs to be told when to sleep like a recalcitrant child. He’d be offended if he weren’t still shocked silly. _Months_. It’s been _months_ at least since this started. Since he was _home_.

Other-him bounces up quickly from his seat, all that injured dignity twisted around into nervous energy, desperately trying to salvage the situation. “Right! Where do you want to sleep?”

“The infirmary,” Geralt says. “Shani’s made arrangements.”

“That sounds… ominous,” Jaskier mutters halfheartedly, but both other-him and Geralt resoundly ignore him, so he stumbles to numb feet (Geralt deftly slips a hand under his elbow to help stabilize, so quickly and lightly that he barely notices until it’s gone) and makes his way _carefully_ down the aisle, comfortably full and rather closer to hysteria than he’d like to admit. He doesn’t want to be stuck flipping through worlds anymore, here one minute, gone the next, spat out and swallowed a dozen times in quick succession, and it’s all… _bubbling up_ , now, until the only choice is laugh or cry and he’s too much the performer to show his tears where people can see them. 

Gods, he just wants to go _home_.

* * *

Morning in this world is… _interesting_.

Jaskier is woken up at dawn by a rather loud bugling noise that bounces off the cliffs all around him until it feels like it’s going to shake him out of his skull, whereupon Shani comes striding into his room and chivvies him up out of the bed and onto his still-sore feet, though they’ve clearly healed a bit overnight. She chatters at him _entirely_ too brightly for this early in the morning as he stumbles out of the cave-hallway-whatever-it-is and into the dining cave, where the entire force of about five hundred separate stares hits him like a brick wall.

He stops dead at the entrance while Shani keeps going, and she takes three steps forward before bouncing back like she’s on a tether.

“What’s wrong?”

He gapes at her for a bit, trying to get the words to lot together in his head, and then there’s a clatter of boot heels on stone and the other-him comes sweeping through, catching Jaskier by the arm and almost _dragging_ him straight up the aisle in the middle of the room to the table on the dais and flopping him down at a seat rather closer to the head of the table than seems entirely _appropriate._

Yen is already seated, and she offers him a cool glance and nothing more, while the rest of the table is… significantly more _open_ about their curiosity. Lambert, for example, is staring at him rather smugly, while a teenage Ciri isin’t even bothering to hide her gawking. Eskel, in proper Eskel fashion, offers the both of them a polite ‘good morning’ before returning his attention to breakfast, which seems to be composed of something rather like sausage rolls, if sausage were... greenish-greyish colored rather than a perfectly good _pink_. 

Other-him seems not to notice his reaction to the food and dumps a mixture of rolls, eggs (again a weird _greenish_ color) and some sort of pastry _dripping_ with blood-red juice that’s somehow the most palatable of the lot, and _it_ looks like something a bruxa might leave behind. He ends up staring at his plate in dismay until Eskel takes pity on him.

“Not hungry?”

“Ah, no, not-- not as such.” He _is_ , he’s _starving_ , but… “What the fuck _is_ this?”

There’s a rather uncomfortable silence.

“Do you not have wherry where you come from?” Ciri asks, bright and innocent, and he shakes his head.

“No, not unless by wherry you mean monster guts, though given that no one here seems to be--” he realizes what he’s about to say just before he says it and can only watch in horror as it spills out of his mouth-- “shitting their guts out all over the place, I can assume you _don’t_.” He _cringes_ as the last words fall, but it’s Lambert who releases a braying laugh, very nearly spraying crumbs all over the disgruntled man beside him.

Ciri makes a face. “I don’t think we have those here.”

“I hadn’t thought so, princess,” he replies absentmindedly. The pastry doesn’t smell _too_ bad (it doesn’t actually smell bad at all, but the _color_ is really rather offputting, as well as the thought of what might happen to his poor tattered clothes if he _spills_ , and the way the juice is dripping that seems _entirely_ too likely to happen) -- maybe if he wraps it up to keep the juices inside and is careful where he puts his fingers--

He’s interrupted from his musings by Geralt thumping down beside Yennefer to a teasing “Slept in today, did we?” from the other him, and _that_ seems to be the cue for the conversation to _really_ get going. Ciri immediately starts chattering away about some Skelligan training exercise or other she wants to try, while Geralt nods and hms in the appropriate places and very clearly appears to be taking mental notes, while Lambert tries to sneak food from Eskel’s plate and is thoroughly foiled every time. 

Other-him strikes up an excited conversation with Triss, halfway down the table, while the rest of the people on the dais -- some he recognizes, others he doesn’t, and all of them comfortable with each other in a way that speaks to _years_ spent having breakfast like this every morning -- take that as their cue to start up more conversations than just the earlier sleepy morning greetings, while Jaskier sits there picking at his food and trying to ignore the sinking in his gut that he’s _ninety_ percent sure is homesickness. (Given that the other option is _food poisoning_ , he really hopes it’s homesickness.)

He’s so absorbed in his own misery (he’s a _poet_ , he’s allowed some dramatics, it’s a perk of the job) that he doesn’t notice breakfast is over until Geralt says “Jaskier,” with the kind of fond amusement he remembers from home and he snaps his head up to realize that everyone but Ciri and Triss have left the table.

“You’re with Triss today,” Geralt says, and pushes himself to his feet and away from the table. Jaskier can’t help but to watch him go, eyes caught on the broad shoulders underneath the leather jacket everyone -- really, what is _with_ that, have they all got some kind of fetish or something -- seems to wear around here-- Ciri clears her throat and he twists around to look at her and Triss.

“Ah, yes, sorry-- what was it you wanted me to do again?”

Ciri snorts in a manner _entirely_ too indecorous for a young lady and steals the uneaten sausage roll from his place before sprinting off, waving furiously at a collection of other teenagers. 

Triss tips her head at him. “Have you told him yet?”

“Ah, ah, well-- told who?”

“Your Geralt. Have you told him how you feel yet?”

He debates telling _her_ , but this is-- this is _Triss_ , who never judges and who more often than not has _excellent_ advice. “Not-- not yet, no.”

“Are you going to?”

He doesn’t have an answer for that. It’s been-- _years_ , years and years and _years_ , and he’s loved Geralt for pretty much all of them, and he’s always thought, somewhere in the back of his mind, that he’d never tell him, that it could never work, but now he’s been in a dozen worlds where is _has_ , and he’s-- confused. Confused, and a little bit horny, and a lot homesick, and--

Triss, who’s been watching him patiently while he frantically tries to sort through everything inside his head -- there’s a lot on the best of days and this _really_ isn’t the best of days -- sighs and tugs him gently by the elbow down the steps. “I could use your help today, if you’re willing.”

“Right! Yes, of course. Anything you need.”

“Good. we’ll have to find you a pair of gloves, though”

“Gloves? What- what for?”

* * *

The gloves, apparently, are to protect his hands from the _poisonous thorns_ they’re going to be picking.

“Are you-- _sure_ there’s nothing else I could do? Shelve books, maybe? Place this big, you’ve _got_ to have a library--”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Shani tells him, and thumps a sort of padded helmet down onto his head hard enough that it slips over his eyes and he has to scramble to push it back so he can see. “They won’t hurt you -- they stop shooting in the fall, and the tips won’t go through treated leather. And besides, the toxin’s easy enough to treat.”

“Wonderful. It’s ‘easy to treat’. What, am I going to spend a week in bed dreaming about pink griffins and little mice in red soldier hats and Keracki accents and rabbits who fly with their ears again?” (The last time he tried the Countess de Stael’s _special ale_ had been an _experience,_ let me tell you. He was getting little aftershocks for _days_ afterwards. In retrospect, probably not the smartest choice he’s ever made, but, well, it seemed like a good idea at the time, and isn’t _that_ just the story of everything stupid he’s ever done. Up to and including following Geralt around for twenty years)

“ _Are_ you coming?” Triss interrupts from outside, and there’s a _very_ unsettling liquid rumble that sounds rather like an upset stomach, if an upset stomach were the size of a kikimora. Shani rolls her eyes, stuffs him unceremoniously into a rather _tight-fitting_ leather jacket, lined with fur that he’s _definitely_ going to be sweating in, hooks a belt around his waist -- wait, what’s that for, there are little dangly things hanging down from the sides, are those _leashes_? Those had better not be _leashes_ , he’s open to almost _anything_ in bed but he’d at least like a little _warning_ first, thank you -- and hauls him out into the blazing fall -- is it fall? It’s probably fall -- sunlight.

Triss is sitting on the neck of a huge silver-blue dragon, looking as exasperated as she can. Which… really isn’t very much, she’s _far_ too sweet for that, and the freckles _don’t_ help--

“Come _on_ ,” Shani gripes, tugging at his arm again, and he follows her blankly as she leads him to the dragon’s leg and gives him a little push upwards. Wha-- what-- is he supposed to climb on _top_ of it?

“Have you _never_ seen a dragon before?” Triss asks him from her perch, and he blinks up at her.

“Ah, well, _technically_ , yes, but somehow I doubt it’s the same kind of dragon you have… here.” Triss tips her head at him. “Big, golden, spent most of his time as a- an old guy, pair of _terrifyingly_ beautiful women warriors who-- no? Thought not.” He can _tell_ Triss is about to ask him more, and he _really_ doesn’t want to talk about the whole thing, given that Geralt _ditched_ him on top of a mountain full of monsters after blaming him for everything that ever went wrong in his life, and while it’s been _years_ since then and they’ve made up long since, it’s still not a particularly pleasant time in his life and one he _really_ doesn’t want to think about--

Triss catches him by the back of his strange leather jacket and bodily _hauls_ him up onto the blue dragon’s neck in front of her, clipping those strange leashes to the harness with practiced ease. He squeaks, gasps, and promptly tries to ignore the rush of arousal that snaps through his blood.

“ _Oh_ , oh, _wow_ , you’re-- _really_ strong, do you work out? Because frankly, there’s not a lot of women who could just… _toss_ me around like that--”

Shani lets out an explosive sigh from below them. “Do you _ever_ stop flirting?”

“Not really, no.”

“Don’t know why I asked,” she sighs, and scrambles up onto the dragon’s back behind Triss. Jaskier can feel Triss turn behind him to look over her shoulder, and then she settles more firmly into the strange saddle-thing and pats the blue dragon’s neck. 

“Everybody ready?”

“What? _No_ \--”

With a _heave_ that leaves Jaskier’s stomach somewhere significantly under the surface of the earth, the dragon vaults aloft, beat, beat, beat, and--

and--

He gasps, chokes, yelps, _feels_ his throat move, but nothing comes out of his throat but silence, no air, no light, no warmth, only dark and cold and _dark_ , endless, blinding, squeezing-- he can’t breathe, he can’t _breathe_ \--

They’re flying through bright clear air, the abrupt influx of air burning in his throat, the dragon warm and steady underneath him and Shani cursing a blue streak into the air.

“Fucking _warn_ me next time, Triss, I’m not used to being hauled _between_ without a moment’s notice!”

Jaskier gulps for air, cold and clear and sweeter than anything he’s ever breathed before, and tries to ignore the shudders that want to start up in his hands. 

“What.. in Melitele’s name… _was_ that?”

“Have you never--oh! My apologies, I forgot you wouldn’t know what _between_ was,” Triss says, and the dragon beneath them tips at a _terrifying_ angle towards the ground, making him gasp and clutch at the saddle straps before easing into the rush of air and the gentle spiralling turns the dragon’s making, leaning tentatively over to look down at the land sweeping up beneath them and the glitter of the ocean in the distance.

“Where _are_ we?”

“The Keracki coast, near the jungle.”

“ _Jungle_?”

“You don’t have that where you’re from?”

“Not in _Kerack_ , no.” The fuck kind of world is this?

“You _have_ to tell me more about where you’re from,” Shani says. “If Kerack’s not a jungle, what _is_ it?”

“Just like any other place, really. Warm, sunny, bit of a shithole in the winter, lots of pirates, you know. The usual.”

“Not for around here. What’s a pirate?”

“ _What’s a_ \-- oh, of course, the weird dragon world doesn’t have pirates. Typical, really, should have expected it. A _pirate_ , my dear, is a-- a member of a rogue ship that attacks merchantmen for fun and profit. Horrible people on the whole, in my experience, though awfully romanticized. Dashing rogues, swooning young women in see-through dresses, swashbuckling on the high seas, all that.”

“What about Thread? Or are you in the middle of an Interval?”

“Whaaaaat’s Thread?”

The dragon lands with an abrupt _thump_ that nearly drowns out the simultaneous exclamation of “What’s _Thread?”_ from both of them and almost throws _him_ right over the dragon’s shoulder.

“You don’t have _Thread_?” Triss asks, once they’re all settled and beginning to figure out how to get _down_.

“You don’t have _pirates_ , is that really so unbelievable? What _is_ Thread, anyways? Doesn’t sound _too_ terrible.”

Behind him, Triss shudders, and reaches around him to point at a long silver marking along the dragon’s neck. Actually, no, wait, that’s a _scar_ , a long deep scar like someone draped a bit of rope soaked in-- in _acid_ or something and left it to eat its way into the flesh.

“Threadscore. We… don’t know what it is, not exactly, but we _do_ know it comes from the Red Star, and it would eat our world to barren stone if it weren’t for the dragons. We owe them, and their creators, whoever they were, our lives, and the lives of all our children to come,” Triss says, quiet and solemn, and the dragon rumbles. Jaskier traces along the edge of it with one finger. It really does look like the skin was eaten away, by this “Thread”, and if it did _that_ to something as powerful as a _dragon_ then he doesn’t want to see what it could do to--

“Wait, hang on, is _that_ what I saw when I first got here? The-- the silvery falling stuff, that you were burning?” He turns around to watch Triss, who is looking… _significantly_ more somber than usual.

 _Oh_. Oh, no _wonder_ he was so scared of it, if this is what it does to-- to _living things_. He’s always had a good sense of danger, if he does say so himself (though he doesn’t always _listen_ to it, mind you), and that-- well. That wasn’t like anything he’s ever encountered before.

The dragon beneath him rumbles, and Triss taps him on the shoulder. “He wants you off.”

“Right! Right, yes, of course, my apologies, mister… dragon, sir.”

 _Sennath_ , says yet _another_ voice inside his head, faintly amused. _My name is Sennath_.

“Right, apologies, Sennath, I’ll be… right off, just, _give_ me a minu--”He lets out a startled squawk as his fingers slip free of the harness straps and he ends up on his butt in the dirt. There’s the _distinct_ impression that the dragon is _laughing_ at him. “Oh, yes, because _you’re_ so dignified. I’ll have you know that I’ve never ridden a dragon before, whiiiich, I don’t suppose _anyone_ in my world could say that, really, Borch didn’t seem like the type--”

Shani rolls her eyes at him and he sticks his tongue back out at her. Childish, he knows, but satisfying. Triss lands with a neat _thump_ , like she’s done this a thousand times (she probably has), and tosses him the gloves they picked out for him. 

“You’d better put those on, I doubt Geralt would be happy if we brought you home poisoned.”

“What, do my wishes not count or something?”

“Do you want to be poisoned?”

“Ah, well, _no_ \--”

“Gods, you’re worse than _our_ Jaskier,” Shani says, fondly, and he shrugs.

“I’m _nervous,_ I’m in an _entirely_ new world, there’s a _very_ large dragon that could quite possibly decide to _eat_ me at any moment--” _I_ **_wouldn’t_ **, says the voice inside his head, “or… any number of other things that could kill me or maim me or what-have-you, I’ve been dragged out to pick _poisonous thorns_ in the middle of _Kerack_ \--”

“We get it, you’re nervous.”

“It’s been a very stressful--” again he tries to tally up the amount of time he’s spent like this and gets caught up on that one world with the horses -- was that two days or three? -- and gives up. “--few months.”

Triss lets out a long sigh. That seems to be a very common reaction to him, in this world, is he _really_ that different from the version of him that exists around here? He’s about to ask when she simply-- walks off, through the dense undergrowth -- this really _is_ a jungle, all full of those strange blue-green vines and short, thick-trunked trees with drooping leaves covered in white fluff, like… like dandelions but _fluffier._

Shani hooks him around the elbow and tows him off after her, stumbling and tripping, right into the jungle.

* * *

He comes back from their _all-day expedition_ (do they _really_ need that much needlethorn or whatever-it-is?) dirty, sweaty, _covered_ in scratches, needle-poked and pricked and generally treated like a living human pincushion and covered, absolutely _covered_ , in white fluff. He’s _still_ picking bits out of his hair as Sennath takes off, and he manages to hold his breath this time as they travel through that blank freezing non-space back to the clear cold skies above the… the _Weyr_ or whatever it is they call this place. (He’s still not sure.)

The dragon -- Sennath -- lands, and Lambert, lounging by the shores of the lake, immediately bursts out into laughter.

“What happened to _you_? Get in a fight with a pillow?”

“Cloudleaf, actually,” Triss, says, and Shani laughs.

“Oh yes, very funny. _You’re_ the one who threw me into the thing!” Jaskier snaps, fiddling around with the clips on his harness-thingy and sliding off of Sennath’s side.

“Yes, because you were about to get turned into a pincushion.”

“-- In my defense, we don’t actually _have_ those where I’m from.”

“Right, because you have ‘magic’.” Shani wiggles her fingers at him, and leaps off of Sennath’s back like she does that every day of her life. Probably does, actually. 

“You have _dragons_!”

“So?”

“ _Teleporting_ dragons! With weird-- creepy-- telepathic voices and-- and whatnot!”

 _You think I’m creepy?_ Sennath asks reproachfully, and he stammers.

“I-- I-- well-- _sorry_ \-- that’s not the point! _How_ is that not magic?”

Lambert shrugs. “That’s just how dragons are. Sure as hell ain’t fairytale magic, though.”

Jaskier gapes at him, tries to find the words, fails, and decides _fuck it_ and storms off.

“That’s not the way to the infirmary,” Lambert puts in helpfully from behind him. 

“...I give up. _Fine_ , have it your way, magic doesn’t exist and I’m just some stranger who popped out of nowhere and looks _exactly_ like your Jaskier.” He glares at them, hands settled firmly on his hips, and brings the full force of years of bardic training to the fore, conveying every ounce of his anger and righteous indignation. 

Lambert and Shani immediately burst into laughter.

Even _Triss_ , sweet Triss, _kind_ Triss, looks like she’s suppressing a smile, though she’s mostly managed to school her face into a neutral expression. _Ugh_.

“I’m done with you all,” he informs them, and turns to walk away -- _towards_ the infirmary this time. It’s not _his_ fault this world is _completely_ different than his own -- he didn’t _choose_ to be here. Melitele, he doesn’t even _want_ to be here -- he’d much rather be _home_ , with _Geralt_ , and not--

He bumps into someone, scrapes past them roughly in a fit of sullen anger, and promptly gets hauled up by a-- _really_ quite firm grip around his wrist, ooh, that’s _lovely_ \--

“What’s wrong?”

 _Ah._ It’s _Geralt._

He tugs his wrist free and Geralt lets him go easily, still looking at him with those soft, concerned eyes, and it’s _too much,_ this world and this Geralt and every other Geralt and he just wants to go _home_ \--

Shani wiggles past the bulk of Geralt’s shoulders with a quick “Sorry, Weyrleader” and an answering hum and plants herself firmly in front of Jaskier.

He walks around her and keeps trudging onwards, abruptly too tired to even bother arguing, and if _that_ isn’t an indicator of how bad it’s gotten he doesn’t know what is. Geralt lets out a warning rumble, though it’s not directed at _him_ \-- there’s a very specific difference between his ‘Jaskier’ growls and his ‘other people’ growls and he’s spent long enough listening to both that he can pick them apart at a moment’s notice, which is another thing: _years_ of knowing Geralt and every Jaskier in every other world seemed to find a way to be with him _long_ before he did--

He doesn’t realize he’s stopped until there’s a firm hand on his shoulder and a voice -- _his_ voice -- saying “I’ve got this,” and pulling him calmly away from the group, stumbling over his own feet until he can walk normally again.

He doesn’t bother looking up. Seeing his own face at a distance is disconcerting enough; he doesn’t think he can do it again at such close range, not when _this_ Jaskier has a Geralt and a home and a solid place in the world-- _fuck_ he’s doing it again. 

The other Jaskier leads him neatly up an endless flight of stairs, back into a deeper cave, and then up _more_ stairs, and yet _more_ , until his calves are burning and he has to pause to breathe slumped against the wall. Other-him leans casually next to him, grinning.

“Out of shape, are we?”

“Fuck off.”

He laughs, and isn’t _that_ strange, to hear his own laugh from someone else’s mouth-- well, not stranger than some of the things he’s seen here so far, but it’s… _unnerving_. 

“Trust me, this is just as weird for me as it is for you,” other-him says, and he snorts.

“Doubt that. _You’re_ the one with the weird dragon-world… thingy.”

“Fair enough. Come on,” and he’s being hauled up _more_ stairs. Again.

Eventually, the _interminable_ stairs end and he wanders out onto-- it’s one of the ledges that dot the sides of the Weyr, looking out over the lake and the grounds and the-- is that a herd of _cattle_? That’s a herd of cattle. Of course it is.

“Dragons need to eat too, you know,” says other-him, sauntering up next to him.

“How…?”

“I’m _you_.”

Jaskier snorts. “Good answer.”

There’s a long stretch of quiet, unusual for two, well, _hims_ in one place, and then “You know, I don’t come up here much. Never really find the time.” When Jaskier looks at him, finally, it’s to a view of his face in profile, staring up at the craggy rim of the Weyr. “This was my Weyr, back in the day, and we haven’t had to reassign it yet.”

“Why not?”

“Not enough dragons, not enough people, sentiment on Nenneke’s part. Whatever happened, it’s still mine.”

“But you don’t… stay here?”

“And miss out on sleeping in the Weyrwoman’s bed?” Other-him snorts. “All thoughts of sex aside -- though the sex is _brilliant_ , by the way, _definitely_ worth it in the long run -- she’s got the biggest feather mattress in the Weyr. _And_ Geralt, though that’s more a bonus than anything else.”

 _What_? He-- he can’t have heard that right. “You and Geralt and-- and _Yennefer_?”

Other-him looks at him fully. He’s younger than Jaskier, but already there’s a thin scar down the side of his jaw, twisting up and disappearing into his hairline, silver-burned into his skin. These people have a life, a history, a _story_. Maybe one more dramatic than how own, although it’s probably hard to beat unwilling dimension-hopping. “Is that not how it works in your world?

“ _No_. Yennefer-- she hated me for a _very_ long time, don’t know why. Or maybe it was that I hated her, actually, though that was… a very long time ago.”

“And now?” other-him prompts, gently.

“Now I’d even go so far as to call her a friend. But not-- not like _that_. How did that even _happen_?”

“Ah. That’s… a very long story.”

“Since when have we ever cared about that?”

Other-him laughs, bright and clear, and wanders over to the lip of the ledge, staring down at the wide-open spread of the lake and the dragons and all the teeny-tiny people. “We thought he was dead, you know.”

“Who, _Geralt_?”

“Mm. He… disappeared. Got lost _between_ times--”

“What?”

Other-him waves a hand. “Don’t ask. That’s an even longer story, and I’d rather not be here until the wee hours explaining it to you.” Jaskier gasps, mock-offended, and other-him glances back over his shoulder, grinning. “What, you can’t _deny_ we’d both be up here that long trying to explain time travel to each other.”

“... You’re saying Geralt _time_ -traveled? What, like he got stuck in the past?”

“Future, more like. He… doesn’t talk about it much. I don’t think it was particularly pleasant. But he was _there_ and Yen and I were _here_ and Ban Ard was being difficult and… well. We didn’t really have anyone else to trust, and I was the _only_ person in the Weyr who knew _anything_ about dealing with Lord Holders and nobility and the like, and we ended up… working together, I guess you could say, and that turned into something more.”

“And Geralt?”

“That came after. It was… easiest, instead of managing two separate relationships each with the same people.”

 _It does mean Rokirith gets a workout, though_ , says a lightly feminine voice in the back of his head, and there’s a _pop_ of air and a _massive fucking dragon right in front of him_ , all _teeth_ and _claws_ and-- is that _blood_ all down her front? That’s-- yup, that’s blood, and a _lot_ of it, too much to have come from one person and he _hates_ that he knows this but if you hang around with Geralt long enough you start to learn these things-- he scrambles backward on the ledge, putting as much space as possible between himself and those _teeth_ , until he’s pressed right up against the wall.

“Done gorging yourself?” other-him asks, arms folded over his chest like there isn’t a _giant bloody dragon_ in front of him, what the _fuck_ \--

_We’re fighting tomorrow! I have to eat!_

Other-him glares at the dragon, and then his face splits into a fond grin and a sigh. “I know. But you’d better not be slow tomorrow, or Geralt’s going to have your hide.”

 _He would never. He likes you too much. Besides, I’m never slow,_ and with a blast of fucking _freezing_ air, the dragon settles neatly onto the ground, attempting to rub her bloody chops against the other-him, who skips neatly out of range. 

“Ah-ah-ah, _no_ , if you’re going to get yourself covered in blood you can very well _wait_ until _after_ you’ve cleaned up, I’m _not_ getting blood all over this doublet--”

“How are you _talking_ to it?” Jaskier squeaks out, still pressed as close to the wall as he can manage.

Both of them look at him.

 _Are you… scared of me?_ the dragon asks, tentative, and takes a nudging step towards him.

“You’re a-- a _bloody_ great dragon covered in… blood,” _oh nice going there, Jaskier,_ “forgive me if I’m a bit nervous.” He knows, somewhere in the back of his mind, that these dragons aren’t dangerous, that there wouldn’t be so many of them around so many humans if there was any risk of getting eaten, but all of that’s being drowned out by the bit of his mind that’s chanting _teeth teeth_ ** _teeth_** and not in the sexy way.

 _I wouldn’t hurt you_ , it -- she? It feels like a she -- says, and there’s… a surprising amount of _hurt_ in the words. Other-him reaches out, delicately, and rubs just above the eye, neatly avoiding the blood spatters.

“Dear heart, I’m sure he doesn’t mean it--”

“I’m sorry, I really am, it’s just the… blood, and the teeth, and the whole…” he makes a vague hand-gesture that’s supposed to encompass, well, _everything_ and ends up looking like he’s trying to swat an invisible fly, “ _dragon_ thing. We don’t really have them back home, and they’re… _significantly_ more willing to eat people. As far as I know, at least, I’ve only ever met the one, and while _he_ didn’t seem like the... people-eating type he was also a bit of an outlier in general--”

 _I see_ , says the dragon, and dips her head in what could only be called a _bow_. _I’m Luth_.

“Jaskier,” he says, and dips his head to her as well, shoving that voice chanting _teeth teeth sweet Mother look at those_ **_teeth_ ** down into the depths of his mind and stomping on it for good measure. “And, ah, my apologies for earlier, there’s just a... _lot_ of blood-- what were you _eating_ , by the by?”

 _Cows_ , she says, and licks delicately at one talon. Ah yes. Cows. That’s a… surprisingly normal thing for a dragon to eat, actually. 

“Right. Yeah. Um. Hello?”

 _Hello_.

“So you’re… mine? Other-mine?”

 _I am_.

“Ah. Right. How does that _work_ , incidentally, because somehow I doubt you’re... bought and sold like a horse--”

 _I am his and he is mine and_ **_nothing_ ** _comes between us_ , Luth says, with such ferocity that he doesn’t doubt her for a moment and in fact takes a step _back_ away from the _still very large and bloody dragon_. 

“It’s a long story,” other-him says apologetically, and rubs at her head again, digging his fingers in. 

_Well_ , that’s-- _extremely_ disconcerting, to see a dragon the size of a good-sized horse-and-carriage twist into the touch like an affectionate housecat, and rather unfairly _cute_ , actually, even with the blood still dripping. She’s _purring_. 

There’s a particularly _loud_ rumble, a burst of _love_ in the back of his head like nothing else he’s ever felt -- this is her whole _world_ , her ending and her beginning and if this bond is ever broken she _will_ die, no question about it, love enough to end a world or to save it -- and the other-him lets out a sharp cry of dismay.

“ _Luth_! I _told_ you, I didn’t want to get blood on this doublet, it’s brand-new.” He stumbles back, poking at the bloody smear of gore and viscera across his middle. _Oooh_ , that’s _not_ going to be easy to get out. 

Luth drops her head, and Jaskier’ shit with a wave of _sorrow_ and _regret_ and _the world has ended and I’m the cause, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, I’ll never do anything ever again_ \--

“Oh, stop it, you,” other-him snaps fondly, and swats at her neck with an affectionate hand. “I’ll give it to Nenneke, she’ll figure out what to do.”

“Salt water helps with that,” Jaskier puts in, helpfully. “Or lemon juice, if you have any, though that can be a bit tricky to find. Oh, and you _probably_ shouldn’t use it on dyed fabric if you can manage it, you’ll mess up the dye--”

“How do you know all this?” other-him asks, with a face like he just _drank_ lemon juice. “Are you… secretly a murderer, or something? Oh gods, have you come to take my place and kill people and frame it all on me?”

Jaskier stares at him. _What_?

“Ah. Right. Yeah. Sorry,” other-him says, sheepish, and scratches at Luth’s head again. “Don’t know what came over me there. But seriously, how _do_ you know so much about getting blood out of things?”

“Bit of a long story, really, given that Geralt here seems to be… human.”

“What?”

“Ah, well, where I come from he’s a-- a monster hunter, of sorts. You know, goes around killing monsters for money, gets covered in blood on the regular -- you’re lucky that wasn’t monster blood, by the way, that _never_ comes out unless you pay a mage and that’s never worth the price--”

“What kind of world do you _come_ from?” other-him asks, wide eyed, while Luth snorts and stares at him.

“Somewhere _very_ different to here, it seems. Do you even _have_ monsters?”

“Not unless you count Stregobor.” They both snort, simultaneously. Some things never change, it seems, and Stregobor’s an ass in every universe. 

Below them, a bell rings, three strikes and a pause, three strikes and a pause.

“Is that a fire alarm or something?” Jaskier asks, edging past Luth to peer out at the only semi-ordered chaos of the bowl below.

“Dinner bell, actually, though if breakfast was any indication it seems like you’d much rather eat in the infirmary?”

“That’d be _lovely_ , thanks.”

“I’ll have someone bring you a bowl. Come on, I’ll show you the way back.”

 _I don’t get a bath_? Luth asks, nudging against other-him again and smearing more blood over his doublet.

“It’s your own fault for getting so dirty,” he replies, looking down in disgust. “I’ll meet you by the lake after I eat.”

 _It’ll be_ **_cold_ ** _then!_

“You can handle _between_ , you’ll be _fine_. Come on,” he calls to Jaskier, and sets off back towards the stairs at a trot.

 _It was nice to meet you_ , Luth says, and dips her head again. 

“Uhhhh… You too? I’m sorry, I really don’t know what the etiquette here is--”

 _What’s etiquette_?

He blinks, shakes his head, and moves on. “It’s been a pleasure, but I really must be… going…”

 _Go,_ she says, fondly, and he catches another glimpse of that world-ending love, not just for the other-him of this world but for all versions of him across all worlds, caught up in the rainbow whirl of dragon eyes, blue and green and golden--

“Are you _coming_?” shouts other-him from somewhere within the stairwell, and he offers another bow to Luth and darts backward, out of sight.

* * *

Safely ensconced in his room in the infirmary, dinner eaten and dishes cleared away, sun well down over the horizon and the strange glowing baskets turned to face the wall, feet freshly unbandaged to reveal raw pink skin that hasn’t hurt all day, he slumps back against the pillows, stuffed with some kind of strange material that smells… unusual (it’s not a scent he’s ever smelled before and he can’t quite say how he _feels_ about it), and misses home.

Sure, he’s been to some universes that are just like his but with a twist (he’s blond, he’s a witcher, he’s _mute_ , et cetera, et cetera), but this one…

Something about this one strikes up all his homesickness and longing and tangles it all up behind his breastbone in a dense knot that leaves him struggling to _breathe_ , sometimes, when he catches a glimpse of a Geralt-but-not- _his_ -Geralt, or the other-him who has his life so perfectly put together that he’s even in love with _Yennefer_ , of all people.

Ah, gods, why did this _happen_?

 _You’re hurting_ , says a voice in the back of his head, resonant and musical and soft.

“Luth?”

_You don’t need to talk out loud, I’ll hear you like this. Why are you hurting?_

_I--_ This is stupid. She isn’t even _his_ dragon, she belongs to the other-him, the Jaskier of _this_ world. Not… whoever _he_ is anymore.

 _You are_ **_mine_** **,** Luth says, fierce and devoted, and he gets the impression that she’s sitting up on her ledge between a pair of great bronze and golden dragons, staring across the bowl at him. _You are mine and you are hurting and I would like to make it_ **_stop_**.

_…Thank you. Truly._

_You’re welcome,_ smug and pleased but still worried. For _him_. _Would you like me to sing to you_?

...What?

 _I will sing to you, if you want me to,_ she says, and then, _Roach likes it,_ defensive.

Honestly, a lullaby sounds pretty good right about now. _Sure._

She makes a pleased noise that’s somehow a combination of a purr and Geralt’s hum, and then--

It’s a _memory_. That’s how she sings, through memory, a mixture of a dozen different times she’s heard _this_ world’s Jaskier sing this song. It’s half-wordless in her mind, only snatches of lyrics coming through, something about flying and clouds and fluffy beds, but the melody is clear and strong underneath it all, and the _warmth_ that flows through the memory makes it more soothing than any lullaby he’s ever sung himself to sleep with before, homesick at Oxenfurt or missing Geralt those first terrible days after the mountain.

The song ends, the memory fades, and Luth’s voice creeps back into his mind. _Better?_

He laughs, bright and clear and _much_ too loud in the quiet halls, but he can’t bring himself to care. He _does_ feel better after that. _Thank yo_.

_You’re welcome._

_Luth, go to_ **_sleep_** _,_ comes a second mental voice, sharp and asperic and somehow perfectly _Yennefer_ , and Luth’s mental touch snaps away almost sheepishly. He calls a mental goodnight after her and gets a faint acknowledgement before her touch cuts off altogether.

Feeling faintly lonely now, he flops to his side and tries to go to sleep.

* * *

There’s a bell.

There’s a _very loud_ bell, and it’s ringing around and around inside his skull like some demonic monkey got its paws on a whole bell-line’s worth and proceeded to have a fit, and it’s _very loud_ , and he would like it to _stop_ , because he’s gotten barely any sleep and it would be rather extremely nice to not have to deal with all of this bullshit _right now,_ please _and_ thank you.

Gods, what _is_ it? It’s not Geralt -- he’s more the shaking-you-awake type, which is _horribly_ unpleasant when it’s half an hour before dawn, but not _quite_ the same level of torture as this constant fucking _bell_ \-- it’s not the breakfast gong at Oxenfurt, because that one didn’t go on and on and _on_ \--

Oh. It’s stopped. 

Well _that’s_ a fucking relief.

He carefully pulls the pillow off from where it seems to have migrated on top of his head to muffle the noise and rolls out of bed, tugging on his-- his old doublet, actually, which appears to have been freshly washed, laundered, and mended for him. That’s nice of… whoever it was who did this; he’s been missing being in his own clothes, for all it’s only been a single day without them.

Now that the ringing clangor inside his head from the bell has faded away, he can hear motion outside the quiet hallway he’s in, loud voices and thumps and the kind of _rumble_ you get from rolling wine barrels -- who’s rolling _wine barrels_ at _this_ hour of the morning? -- and above it all _Shani’s_ voice, hollering indistinct instructions and the occasional curse at the top of her lungs.

What is going _on_?

He pokes his head out of his room, sees nothing but the blank stone hallway in front of him, no one coming, no one going, though that _rumble_ ’s gotten louder and louder as time goes on, a throbbing hum that buzzes against the inside of his skull.

It gets louder as he makes his way towards the exit to the cave, though he nearly misses it because there’s no sunlight whatsoever shining through the opening. What time _is_ it, anyway, and _why_ do they feel the need to wake people up at such an ungodly hour?

“What the fuck are _you_ \-- oh. Don’t mind me, then,” says a voice from behind him, and he turns to see a young man in the same green on green on green that Shani was wearing carrying a truly _ginormous_ crate of bandages, all neatly rolled and packaged and more than any one person would ever need, even if they wanted to wrap themselves up like an ancient elven _mummy_.

“What-- what’s going on?” but the man doesn’t bother answering, just sweeps out of the entrance at a half run and disappears into the shadows of the bowl. Jaskier steps out on the landing, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the predawn gloom. Well, _sort_ of predawn gloom; the sky is bright enough to indicate that sun has long since risen but the great stone walls of the Weyr cast long shadows over the sand and the lake and the fucking _ridiculous_ amount of dragons moving in and around the air -- there’s enough of them that it all looks like one heaving sea of green and bronze and blue backs, and more of them are landing and taking off and flying short loops in the air and all in all it’s complete and utter _chaos_.

“Oi! Why the hell aren’t you with your dragon?” someone shouts from below, and he squints into the grey air, trying to see who it is--

“He hasn’t got one, so you can leave him be and get back to your own tasks!” hollers _Triss,_ from behind him, and he skips to the side as her footsteps approach. She’s back in the leather outfit she wore when he saw her the first time, and-- this is _Triss_ , this one of the sweetest women he’s ever met, who’s like a big sister to Ciri and also a _sorceress_ , and after Geralt’s whole thing with Yennefer he’s sworn off ever sleeping with sorceresses, but-- _damn_.

She’s _also_ got the same green sash across her chest -- is that like, a healer thing here? Must be -- and she turns to look at him in that _witchy_ way they’ve all got -- ‘they’ being magic-users in general -- like they’re adding up all the things they don’t like about you and coming to unfortunate conclusions. 

“Well,” she says, finally, after she’s _looked_ at him for an uncomfortable amount of time, “I suppose it would be best if you just stayed out of the way. We’re not used to having strangers here during Fall.”

“Wait, _Fall_? Like-- like _Thread_ fall? As in that nasty kills-everything-it-touches stuff you were telling me about yesterday--” but she’s already gone, running down the steps and disappearing into the heaving crowd. He gapes after her until someone yells at him to “ _move_ , dammit, you’re _in the way_!”, and by then she’s gone entirely. He dips his head politely to a harried-looking woman in green who’s carrying a roll of gauze the size of a _carpet_ and presses himself back against the stone wall to make room for her as she runs.

The chaos all gets sorted out eventually, a flock of people in green setting up some rig involving slings and tables and barrels of something or other -- if the scar on Sennath’s neck was any indication of what can happen during Threadfall they’re going to _need_ everything they’ve got -- and more and more dragons vaulting up from the ground to perch along the rim of the Weyr or fly in neat holding patterns overhead, while others perch on the ledges and stare upwards with their strange eyes. He catches a glimpse of bright green Luth settling into place beside a big _black_ dragon, before a roar goes up from every dragon present -- Jaskier claps his hands over his ears and tries to ignore the way he can feel his skull _shaking_ \-- and they all flap aloft as one, three beats that rattle the world and they’re _gone_. 

The Weyr is eerily silent.

“Er… _now_ what?”

“Now we wait,” says a voice from behind him, and he _jumps_ , twisting around to see who it is-- oh it’s _Nenneke_ , dressed in _normal_ clothes rather than a priestess’s robes, but with the same no-nonsense air about her, all brisk movements and the sinking feeling that you’ve irritated her just by existing, and why shouldn't _she_ be here as well, this world's already godsdamned strange enough. “There are never any injured in the first half-hour of Fall -- it’s the fifteen minutes before shift-change and the last hour and a half you have to worry about.”

“I, ah, thank you?”

She sniffs. “Are you planning on doing _anything_ to help, or were you just going to stand there and gawk?”

“I, well, I, I wouldn’t really… know how to--” Her fingers close like bony talons around his wrist and he yelps and stumbles over his own feet as she drags him off towards the spot where the healers are still setting up… some sort of contraption that he could have _sworn_ he’s seen in a brothel somewhere. He’s forcibly handed off to the young man who was carrying the bandages earlier. 

“I trust you know how to pass things out?”

He stutters out something that might be a yes, gets a sharp nod from Nenneke, and ends up leaning against the table while he tries to figure out what just happened. The man next to him offers a bit of a wry chuckle and dips his head. 

“Kris.”

“...Jaskier.”

“I know.” There’s a long pause, during which Kris tips his head and _stares_ at him, and then-- “Are you really from another world?”

Jaskier sighs. “Yes.”

“How is that even _possible_?”

“Magic.”

Kris’s eyes go _big_. “ _Really_?”

“Yes, _really_ , you have giant teleporting dragons and you don’t believe in magic?”

Kris shrugs. “Dragons are dragons, but _magic_ is _real_?”

“Ah. Well. Not in this universe, I think--”

“Eyes front, you two,” Shani says from somewhere behind him, and Jaskier makes an apologetic face at Kris, turns to look out over the lake. Taps at the table, one-two-one-two-one-two-three, until someone gives him the stink eye and he forces his hands to still. Picks at the hem of his shirt until the threads pop free and he starts chewing on his nails for something to _do_.

“Is this _all_ we’re doing, just _waiting_?”

“The waiting’s the easy part,” says someone else.

“Well that’s _ominous_. What, you don’t have any jokes? Stories? Songs? Random anecdotes that no one really cares about but you tell anyways because there’s nothing else to _do_?”

“If you knew what was coming, you wouldn’t be so quick to talk,” says someone else, and he’s just about to make a snappy retort when the sky cracks open with a boom and a squeal and there’s abruptly a wall of blue muscle in front of his face, thumping to the ground and skidding, sending up a spray of gravel. People are shouting, and the dragon is squealing, and above it all _Shani_ is _roaring_ like a dragon herself, and somehow or other they all get sorted out without ever seeming to calm down and then he’s handing off a basket of bandages to Kris and watching the blue dragon take off again, three beats and gone.

“Bad jump,” says Kris from beside him, shaking his head. “Keegan needs to get better at visualizing or he’s going to get someone in a tangle someday.”

“Right. Yeah,” because there’s nothing else he can really say to that, and then they’re back to the waiting.

He doesn’t know how long it is before the next injured dragon shows up, this one with a wing cut clear through in lacy patterns, and _this_ one doesn’t jump off and away, instead getting its wing stitched neatly together and slinking off to huddle around its rider in a forlorn green lump.

They start coming in quicker, after that, one or two carried in on the back of one of the big golden ones, dragons with wings torn to shreds or deep scores along their flank with the wet gleam of bone underneath -- Jaskier has a moment to be thankful for his years spent travelling with Geralt and stitching up worse with his own two hands, because if he hadn’t seen all of that he surely would’ve puked by now. As it is, he counts out rolls of gauze with faintly trembling hands and keeps his head down and pointedly _doesn’t look_ at the shaking, keening wrecks that are coming in, riders frantically trying to comfort them until whatever it is that’s in those barrels gets painted onto their injuries and they calm.

There’s a lull, at one point, and he counts off the rhythm to _The Golden Eel of Hindarsfjall_ in his head, focusing on that and not on the _noise_ and the _stink_ and the harsh metallic smell of dragon blood that burns in the air. What _is_ this world, that so many are injured--

“How often do you _do_ this?” He can’t keep the words in, not like this, and Kris turns to face him, calm and placid and _how_ , how is he staying this _calm_ through-- through _all of this_ \--

“One a week, sometimes more. It averages out to every three days over about a year,” and he _shrugs_. He fucking _shrugs_. “You get used to doing what you can, while you can. If it weren’t for the riders we’d all be long dead.”

Right. They don’t have a choice, here.

Not that that makes it any easier.

He sighs, reaches for another roll of gauze to top off a basket-- and then winces as every dragon in the bowl, even those too injured to do more than lie on the sand and pant, lifts their head to the sky and _keens_.

The sound rattles in his chest, catches in his throat, a _world’s_ worth of sorrow caught up in that eerie harmony as it rings off the walls of the Weyr, shudders and trembles and oh _gods_ , what’s _happening_ , did someone _die_ \--

The sound changes.

Harsher, strident, like a trapped beast clawing at the walls of its cage, _I’m stuck I’m stuck someone help me I’m_ **_stuck_** _\--_

He’s breathing hard without even realizing it, heart pounding -- he can’t breathe, he can’t _breathe_ , he’s trapped and he can’t breathe and he’s going to be stuck there forever -- the scream rings and rings and _rings_ \--

There’s a _crack_ like the world has broken in half, a flare of light and desperate breath of air, two dragons in the sky, rimmed in sunlight--

And someone _screams_.

High and thin and fragile, and that’s-- that’s _Luth_ making that sound, _Luth_ plummeting through the air like a bird with broken wings, until the massive golden-bronze dragon above her swoops down into a dive and drags her back on course, wings flaring limply until they skid to a halt in a tangle of limbs.

Jaskier is already running, because something’s not right, he can _feel_ it, can feel the way the bronzy dragon is struggling to keep the green pinned to the ground, can almost but not quite hear her screaming inside his head--

 _Luth_!

And she’s there.

 _Oh gods_.

It hurts. It _hurts_ . The full force of her mind and her pain and she’s _trying_ to bond with him but she _can’t_ for some reason, can’t reach out and fill that empty space in her mind because _her_ Jaskier is-- is _gone_ and it _hurts_ and she wants to go _between_ but she can’t, Ziraeth’s not _letting her_ \--

There’s a horrible _crunching_ noise, teeth into flesh and the bronze -- Ziraeth -- jumps backwards, nursing a broken forearm, and Luth’s crouching, wings flaring, ready for that last jump between but not quite making it because her rider is _here_ but he’s not her rider, her rider is _gone_ and it _hurts--_

The sound that comes out of Jaskier’s throat is only technically her name, and then he’s skidding on the gravel, reaching up to yank her head down against his chest -- there are already green-clad healers swarming all over the place, scrambling up her harness to cut this world’s version of him free and lower him to the ground -- someone -- Ciri? That sounds like _Ciri_ \-- is shouting ( _Bad jump, caused a tangle, he’s alive but unconscious_ ) and it’s all chaos so he reaches out to Luth’s mind as best he can and hangs on _tight_.

 _You’re not him!_ and she _wants_ to throw him, he can feel it, but he grips her by the jaw and holds her head tight to him, “he’s fine, he’s fine, Luth, he’s going to be okay, he’s just unconscious, he’ll wake up and everything will be okay,” a reassuring babble of words meant to hold her _here_ more than anything else--

and the world lurches around him.

A flicker, here-and-gone-again, but there’s an ache in his bones that he can’t ignore, a tugging in his gut like a fish on a hook -- _no, no,_ **_no,_ ** _he_ **_can’t_ ** _leave, not_ **_now_** \-- Shani is working the chest of the other-him until he coughs and splutters and tries to sit up, gasping for air through an aching throat -- Luth’s head comes free of his grip with a wild cry, knocking him backwards into the dirt -- _Jaskier!_ \-- and then space closes around him like a mouth and he’s gone.

Again.

 _Bollocks_. 

There’s an echo in the distance, a voice crying through space and time and the roaring Chaos around him -- _Thank you!_ \-- and then he’s spun out into nothing once more.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, comments and kudos will be given a warm and loving home. If you have any... questions or whatever about the general world, hit me up in the comments; I'll see what I can do to clarify it.  
> Come visit me at my [Tumblr](https://storm-and-starlight.tumblr.com/)!


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